


heartstrings

by newisalwaysbetter



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: Caretaking, Emotions, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Sickfic, Whump, set s1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-06
Updated: 2020-06-06
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24577993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/newisalwaysbetter/pseuds/newisalwaysbetter
Summary: Enemy as he is, she can't let him die on her doorstep.
Relationships: Garcia Flynn/Lucy Preston
Comments: 2
Kudos: 46





	heartstrings

**Author's Note:**

> Set late S1, with warnings for death mentions and potentially mild unkind treatment of a sick person.

_Are you kidding me?_

Lucy stands there on her front step, arms crossed in frustration and shoulders slumped low. Her front door stands open, and there’s rain falling on the polished hardwood of her entryway, but she’s more interested in the man collapsed on her doorstep.

She hardly recognizes Garcia Flynn. The hoodie beneath his windbreaker is pulled up over his head, and his massive form is curled in on itself, pressed up against her front stoop so as to avoid the worst of the rain. Lucy hadn’t even seen his face (although she’d suspected), until she’d murmured his name and he’d lifted his unshaven face from his chest. The man is visibly shivering, and looks soaked to the bone.

Lucy runs a hand through her hair. She should call the police. She should call Agent Christopher. She is not doing this. She should just leave him there.

“You have _no right_ to look so pathetic,” Lucy mutters, as she hooks her hands under his arms and starts dragging him up the steps. Flynn grunts as his backside hits each step, and Lucy growls, “Serves you right…”

By the time she’s deposited Flynn on his back on the entryway rug, Lucy’s gasping for air. “You’re lucky my mother’s out of town.”

Flynn sniffles in response.

Lucy stands over him for a long moment, arms folded. Maybe she had assumed he would wake up once he was inside. 

“Of course not. Why should anything ever be easy?” With effort, she starts tugging his muddy jacket off his shoulders. It’s filthy as a doormat. “What, did you crawl through the garden to get here?”

“Of course.” His eyes don’t open, and his voice is raw.

“ _Flynn?_ ” There’s a new feeling regarding him blossoming in her chest, something wolfish and tight. _Anger,_ she decides. “You came to my _house?_ Have you had this address this whole time?”

This time, there’s a creaky laugh. “I can’t believe that’s what you’re worried about…” He trails off, his voice slurring. 

_Yes, definitely anger._ “Garcia Flynn, you are not–falling–asleep on me.” She shakes him by the lapels, gently (sort of). An edge of panic rises to her voice. “You are _waking up,_ and walking out of my house, and going back to whatever…vampire den, that you live in, when you’re not busy ruining my life.”

Flynn’s eyebrows furrow, and his voice wavers dizzily as he laughs. “You really think I can walk?”

“Good. Then you’ll stay right there.” Lucy marches away to the kitchen, ignoring Flynn dizzily calling her name.

(That doesn’t mean it doesn’t tug on her heartstrings, though.)

She’s still angry that he’s found her here, so Lucy takes her sweet time wetting a washcloth and filling up a water bottle for him. All the same, having a dead Flynn in her entryway somehow seems worse than a live one.

He doesn’t speak while she’s washing his stubbly, clammy face, although those pale eyes do flicker open. Lucy ignores their steady stare for as long as she can, but when she lifts the water bottle to his lips, he wiggles his eyebrows, and she huffs. “Don’t make this weird.”

When she removes the it from his mouth, however, Flynn croaks, “More.”

“In a minute. We should get you–”

“Either you let me have water, Lucy, or I expire on your floor.” He wriggles in an approximation of a shrug. “Your choice!”

“You are the _most_ dramatic man I have ever met.”

Flynn makes a face as if to say, _Haven’t I earned the right to be?_

Lucy rolls her eyes. “Can you stand?”

“What do you think?”

“Okay, fine,” Lucy snaps back, and goes to stand. 

Flynn’s eyes go wide, and for the first time, she sees the fever behind them. “Lucy,” he breathes in a whisper. “Lucy, Lucy, Lucy…”

The truth is, she’s angry enough not to stop, right up until the moment his arm flops weakly against her ankle. 

That brings her up short, and Lucy stands over him for a moment too long, waffling and watching him struggle.

Her weak heart breaks entirely, in that moment.

“Let’s try this again.” She kneels beside him. “Can you stand if I help you?”

His eyes lower to the ground. “Yes, Lucy.”

She isn’t entirely sure how she gets him up the stairs to the spare bedroom, only that she’s certain he wouldn’t fit on the couch. He sits slumped over while she takes off his shoes. “I’m only doing this so you don’t make the sheets dirty, got it?”

“Yes, Lucy,” he whispers, and when Lucy glances up, he’s gazing down at the floor.

Neither of them look at each other while Lucy maneuvers him into bed. Only when she finds herself tucking him in carefully does she mutter, “Not a word.”

“I can’t hurt you, you know. Not like this.”

“Yes,” Lucy agrees tightly. “I know.”

“You’re not afraid of me.” It’s a gentle question.

“I guess not.” Lucy stands, crossing her arms, and looks down. His eyes are half-lidded with fever, and she wonders if he’ll remember this conversation in the morning. “Not for a long time now.”

“But you’re angry.”

“Because you showed up at my door and made me take care of you,” she hisses furiously. 

Flynn arches one eyebrow.

“Okay, so maybe you didn’t _make_ me. I just…” Lucy sighs, running a hand through her hair. “I wish you hadn’t come.”

“Why?” Flynn’s accent thickens with sleep. “I’d much rather die in a real bed…”

“Don’t say that,” she huffs, and pulls the blanket over his exposed hand. “You’re not dying, and you’re _definitely_ not doing it in my bed.”

“Don’t tempt me. It’s very comfortable.”

“You’re a monster,” she mutters offhand.

Flynn’s eyes don’t open this time, and he sounds half-feverish as he mumbles, “Yes, I know…”

“No, that’s not what I–I don’t–” But it’s no use. Flynn’s chest has begun rising and falling slowly with sleep.

With infinite care, Lucy leans forward and flips a lock of hair out of his face.

Then she leans up on the wall beside the bed, watching his well-lined face slacken, and feeling that tug in her heart that she now recognizes.

Protection. Of her enemy.

_What am I going to do with you?_


End file.
